Today was the opening day for the first Apple store in South Carolina, down at the Haywood Mall in Greenville. So, just for the novelty of it, my dad, brother, sister-in-law, and I went to visit.
It made me hate Apple just a little bit.
First off, I came around the corner from the entrance and see a line in front of the store. The line ends with an Apple employee, so I figure maybe they’re waiting to talk to her or something. When I tried to walk in, I was stopped by a security guard who told me I had to wait in line just to get in to the store. This got under my skin; it’s just a store. It’s just the trademark Apple arrogance that “our store is so special that you have to wait to get in.”
To be fair, that’s supposed to be just for the first day. But the store wasn’t too crowded at this point (about 8:00 PM). There was no reason to make us wait; it was just annoying.
So, bad start. But since we made the trip all the way to Greenville to see this thing, we waited in line for the five minutes. When we get to the head of the line, an employee in one of their professional blue t-shirts comes up and says to Dad something like “Hi, my name is David. Would you like to go shopping with me today?”
Unfortunately, Dad didn’t catch the wording; my sister-in-law did and repeated it to us later. If he had caught it, he would have said something like “No, I’m here to look at computers. I’m not looking for a date.”
So, Dad talks to the employee while my brother and I go poke at all the shiny aluminum and glass. This is the stuff Apple does well; they do make good products. The problem I have with Apple is the way they sell their products. They want to be my friend, while all I want is to buy a shiny metal box from them.
There’s one other thing that they do at the Apple store that makes them borderline evil: In the back of the store, there’s a table, set several feet lower than the other tables, surrounded by bean-bag chairs and topped with big monitors covered in Disney logos. Get the kids while they’re young.
The whole experience left me feeling like a cat rubbed the wrong way. So, ironically, if you like Apple, I recommend staying away from their stores.
